His hand slid up her back, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. His fingers caressed her shoulder, slid down her arm, and then over to her breast.
Francesca froze.
But Michael was too far gone to notice; he cupped her, moaning audibly as he squeezed.
“No,” she whispered. This was too much, it was too intimate.
It was too… Michael.
“Francesca,” he murmured, his lips trailing along her cheek to her ear.
“No,” she said, and she wrenched herself free. “I can’t.”
She didn’t want to look at him, but she couldn’t not do it. And when she did, she was sorry.
His chin was dipped, and his face was slightly turned, but he was still staring at her, his eyes searing and intense.
And she was burned.
“I can’t do this,” she whispered.
He said nothing.
The words came faster, but not in greater numbers. “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t… I… I-”
“Then go,” he bit off. “Now.”
She ran.
She ran to her bedroom, and then the next day she ran to her mother.
And then the day after that, she ran all the way to Scotland.
Chapter 15
… I am pleased that you are thriving in India, but I do wish you would consider returning home. We all miss you, and you do have responsibilities that cannot be fulfilled from abroad.
– -from Helen Stirling to her son, the Earl of Kilmartin, two years and four months after his departure for India
Francesca had always been a rather good liar, and, Michael reflected as he read the short letter she’d left for Helen and Janet, she was even better when she could avoid face-to-face contact and do it in writing.
An emergency had arisen at Kilmartin, Francesca had written, describing the outbreak of spotted fever among the sheep in admirable detail, and it required her immediate attention. They weren’t to worry, she assured them, she’d be back soon, and she promised to bring down some of Cook’s splendid raspberry jam, which, as they all knew, was unmatched by any confection in London.
Never mind that Michael had never heard of a sheep contracting spotted fever, or any other farm animal for that matter. Where, one had to wonder, did the sheep show their spots?
It was all very neat, and all very easy, and Michael wondered if Francesca had even arranged for Janet and Helen to be out of town for the weekend just so that she could make her escape without having to make her farewells face to face.
And it was an escape. There was no doubting that. Michael didn’t believe for one minute that there was an emergency up at Kilmartin. If that had been the case, Francesca would have felt duty bound to inform him of it. She might have been running the estate for years, but he was the earl, and she wasn’t the sort to usurp or undermine his position now that he was back.
Besides, he had kissed her, and more than that, he had seen her face after he’d kissed her.
If she could have run to the moon, she would have done so.
Janet and Helen hadn’t seemed too terribly concerned that she was gone, although they did chatter on (and on and on) about how they missed her company.
Michael just sat in his study, pondering methods of self-flagellation.
He had kissed her. Kissed her.
Not, he thought wryly, the best course of action for a man attempting to hide his true feelings.
Six years, he’d known her. Six years, and he’d kept everything beneath the surface, played his role to perfection. Six years, and he’d gone and ruined the whole thing with one simple kiss.
Except there hadn’t been anything simple about it.
How was it possible that a kiss could exceed his every fantasy? And with six years to fantasize, he’d imagined some truly superior kisses.
But this… it was more. It was better. It was…
It was Francesca.
Funny how that changed everything. You could think about a woman every day for years, imagine what she might feel like in your arms, but it never, ever matched the real thing.
And now he was worse off than ever before. Yes, he’d kissed her; yes, it had been quite the most spectacular kiss of his life.
But yes, it was also all over.
And it wasn’t going to happen again.
Now that it had finally happened, now that he had tasted perfection, he was in more agony than ever before. Now he knew exactly what he was missing; he understood with painful clarity just what it was that would never be his.
And nothing would ever be the same.
They would never be friends again. Francesca was not the sort of woman who could treat an intimacy lightly. And as she hated awkwardness of any kind, she would go out of her way to avoid his presence.
Hell, she’d gone all the way to Scotland just to be rid of him. A woman couldn’t make her feelings much clearer than that.
And the note she’d penned to him-Well, it was far less conversational than the one she’d left for Janet and Helen.
It was wrong. Forgive me.
What the hell she thought she needed forgiveness for was beyond him. He had kissed her. She might have entered his bedchamber against his wishes, but he was man enough to know that she had not done so with the expectation that he might maul her. She had been concerned because she thought he was angry with her, for God’s sake.
She had acted rashly, but only because she cared for him and valued their friendship.
And now he had gone and ruined that.
He still wasn’t quite certain how it had happened. He’d been looking at her; he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. The moment was seared in his brain-her pink silk dressing robe, the way her fingers had pinched together as she spoke to him. Her hair had been loose, hanging over one shoulder, and her eyes had been huge and wet with emotion.